Dr. Anthony Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times during a contentious Senate hearing Wednesday on the origins of COVID-19, refusing to answer any questions from Republican senators investigating his role in the government’s pandemic response. The hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee marked the first time in Fauci’s decades-long career that he invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination.
In a brief opening statement, Fauci accused Committee Chairman Senator Rand Paul of having an “unhinged obsession” with him and of seeking to entrap him into committing perjury. “The sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something — anything — that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars,'” Fauci said, according to NBC News.
Fauci’s legal team determined that invoking the Fifth Amendment was necessary because Republicans had suggested that his Biden pardon would not shield him from new statements made at the hearing. Although former President Joe Biden issued a preemptive pardon to Fauci in January 2025 before leaving office, that pardon covers only conduct through early 2025, leaving potential legal exposure for any new testimony, according to reporting from NBC News and the New York Times.
Throughout the nearly three-hour hearing, senators—both Republican and Democrat—peppered Fauci with questions about his handling of COVID-19 policies, the origins of the coronavirus, and whether the National Institutes of Health funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China. To each question, regardless of its subject matter, Fauci responded with the same statement: “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.”
At one point, Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri tested the boundaries of Fauci’s response by asking him to identify the colors of his tie and the hearing room’s carpeting—questions Fauci also declined to answer, according to NBC News. Republican senators visibly expressed frustration, shaking their heads and rolling their eyes as Fauci repeated his invocations.
The hearing escalated when Fauci’s attorney, David Schertler, attempted to speak after the questioning concluded. Chairman Paul ordered security to remove Schertler from the committee room, prompting gasps and applause from anti-Fauci attendees in the packed hearing room. Schertler later called the removal “outrageous,” telling NBC News that it proved “the baseless and vindictive nature of this proceeding.”
Paul concluded the hearing by announcing that the committee would vote next week on holding Fauci in contempt of Congress. “There will be repercussions to your refusal to testify today,” Paul told Fauci, according to NBC News. A contempt vote could initiate a process resulting in civil sanctions, fines, or a Justice Department referral for possible criminal charges.
Democrats on the committee defended Fauci and criticized the hearing as a partisan effort. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut compared the proceedings to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist hearings of the 1950s, arguing that the hearing was part of a broader “campaign against science” that has undermined public health. Senator Gary Peters of Michigan warned that such proceedings would deter scientific experts from serving in government.
Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has appeared more than 250 times before Congress in his career and had never invoked the Fifth Amendment until Wednesday. Paul has long accused Fauci of misleading Congress about the origins of COVID-19 and the NIH’s funding of research in Wuhan. Fauci has repeatedly denied these allegations, and federal reviews of the pandemic’s origins have been inconclusive, with no evidence that the virus was engineered and leaked from a laboratory, according to CNN.
The hearing reflects the deeply polarized political landscape surrounding the pandemic response, nearly six years after COVID-19 emerged. Biden’s January 2025 pardon of Fauci was intended to shield him from what the former president characterized as potential politically motivated prosecution, but the scope and effectiveness of that protection remain contested as Republicans continue their investigation.
Sources
- CNN — Fauci’s invocation of the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times, the contempt vote announcement, and legal context surrounding his pardon
- NBC News — Details of Fauci’s opening statement, his Fifth Amendment invocations, the removal of his lawyer, and Democratic responses
- Axios — Fauci’s rationale for invoking the Fifth Amendment and Paul’s response regarding the pardon
- The New York Times — Details on the scope and limitations of Biden’s pardon and potential legal exposure
- NPR — Confirmation of the contempt vote announcement and the hearing’s focus on COVID origins
